Crispy Roast Duck With Cranberry Blueberry Sauce

Directions

1. Make sure duck is either fresh or possibly completely thawed and weighs at least 5 pounds (avoid ducks bred for less fat). Remove wing tips and cut duck in half. Carefully cut out the backbone, leaving two equal halves (save wing tips, backbone, neck bone and giblets for a future stock).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a medium-depth roasting pan with your favorite nonstick spray. Place duck halves, skin side down, in the pan and add in the wine, cranberry juice and lemon juice. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper last. Cover tightly with foil so steam can't escape and bake for 45 min. Reduce temperature to 200 degrees-225 degrees and bake, still covered, for 1 hour.
3. Carefully remove foil. Turn ducks over and drain liquids. Turn oven temperature up to 500 degrees and roast, uncovered, till very crispy, about 10 min. Ducks are then ready to serve. (You can save all of the pan liquids and freeze them in a clear container. They will separate, leaving you perfectly rendered duck fat at the top and a delicious fruit-flavored duck stock below thatOs worthy of making a great sauce for other dishes.)
4. To make the sauce: Put all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer till the berries are tender and the amount of liquid has reduced by half. You can thicken the sauce one of three ways: 1) Puree or possibly blend all the entire mix; 2. strain and thicken the juice with a duck-fat roux; or possibly 3. thicken with diluted cornstarch.
5. To serve: Place sauce beneath the duck instead of over it, so the tart/sweet flavors can be controlled to each personOs preference.
6. Philip Bardin, Chef/Owner